The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
always had sufficient; it’s time enough to be clutching for more, I
think, when you begin to see the end of what you have. But I have
sometimes frequented the gaming-houses just to watch the on-goings of
those mad votaries of chance—a very interesting study, I assure you,
Helen, and sometimes very diverting: I’ve had many a laugh at the
boobies and bedlamites. Lowborough was quite infatuated—not willingly,
but of necessity,—he was always resolving to give it up, and always
breaking his resolutions. Every venture was the “just once more:” if he
gained a little, he hoped to gain a little more next time, and if he
lost, it would not do to leave off at that juncture; he must go on till
he had retrieved that last misfortune, at least: bad luck could not
last for ever; and every lucky hit was looked upon as the dawn of
better times, till experience proved the contrary. At length he grew
desperate, and we were daily on the look-out for a case of
_felo-de-se_—no great matter, some of us whispered, as his existence
had ceased to be an acquisition to our club. At last, however, he came
to a check. He made a large stake, which he determined should be the
last, whether he lost or won. He had often so determined before, to be
sure, and as often broken his determination; and so it was this time.
He lost; and while his antagonist smilingly swept away the stakes, he
turned chalky white, drew back in silence, and wiped his forehead. I
was present at the time; and while he stood with folded arms and eyes
fixed on the ground, I knew well enough what was passing in his mind.
“‘Is it to be the last, Lowborough?’ said I, stepping up to him.
“‘The last but ONE,’ he answered, with a grim smile; and then, rushing
back to the table, he struck his hand upon it, and, raising his voice
high above all the confusion of jingling coins and muttered oaths and
curses in the room, he swore a deep and solemn oath that, come what
would, THIS trial _should_ be the last, and imprecated unspeakable
curses on his head if ever he should shuffle a card or rattle a
dice-box again. He then doubled his former stake, and challenged any
one present to play against him. Grimsby instantly presented himself.
Lowborough glared fiercely at him, for Grimsby was almost as celebrated
for his luck as _he_ was for his ill-fortune. However, they fell to
work. But Grimsby had much skill and little scruple, and whether he
took advantage of the other’s trembling, blinded eagerness to deal
unfairly by him, I cannot undertake to say; but Lowborough lost again,
and fell dead sick.
“‘You’d better try once more,’ said Grimsby, leaning across the table.
And then he winked at me.
“‘I’ve nothing to try with,’ said the poor devil, with a ghastly smile.
“‘Oh, Huntingdon will lend you what you want,’ said the other.
“‘No; you heard my oath,’ answered Lowborough, turning away in quiet
despair. And I took him by the arm and led him out.
“‘Is it to be the last, Lowborough?’ I asked, when I got him into the
street.
“‘The last,’ he answered, somewhat against my expectation. And I took
him home—that is, to our club—for he was as submissive as a child—and
plied him with brandy-and-water till he began to look rather
brighter—rather more alive, at least.
“‘Huntingdon, I’m ruined!’ said he, taking the third glass from my
hand—he had drunk the others in dead silence.
“‘Not you,’ said I. ‘You’ll find a man can live without his money as
merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body.’
“‘But I’m in debt,’ said he—‘deep in debt. And I can never, _never_ get
out of it.’
“‘Well, what of that? Many a better man than you has lived and died in
debt; and they can’t put you in prison, you know, because you’re a
peer.’ And I handed him his fourth tumbler.
“‘But I hate to be in debt!’ he shouted. ‘I wasn’t born for it, and I
cannot _bear_ it.’
“‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ said I, beginning to mix the
fifth.
“‘And then, I’ve lost my Caroline.’ And he began to snivel then, for
the brandy had softened his heart.
“‘No matter,’ I answered, ‘there are more Carolines in the world than
one.’
“‘There’s only one for me,’ he replied, with a dolorous sigh. ‘And if
there were fifty more, who’s to get them, I wonder, without money?’
“‘Oh, somebody will take you for your title; and then you’ve your
family estate yet; that’s entailed, you know.’
“‘I wish to God I could sell it to pay my debts,’ he muttered.
“‘And then,’ said Grimsby, who had just come in, ‘you can _try again_,
you know. I _would_ have more than one chance, if I were you. I’d never
stop here.’
“‘I _won’t_, I tell you!’ shouted he. And he started up, and left the
room—walking rather unsteadily, for the liquor had got into his head.
He was not so much used to it then, but after that he took to it kindly
to solace his cares.
“He kept his oath about gambling (not a little to the surprise of us
all), though Grimsby did his utmost to tempt him to break it, but now
he had got hold of another habit that bothered him nearly as much, for
he soon discovered that the demon of drink was as black as the demon of
play, and nearly as hard to get rid of—especially as his kind friends
did all they could to second the promptings of his own insatiable
cravings.”
“Then, they were demons themselves,” cried I, unable to contain my
indignation. “And you, Mr. Huntingdon, it seems, were the first to
tempt him.”
“Well, what could we do?” replied he, deprecatingly.—“We meant it in
kindness—we couldn’t bear to see the poor fellow so miserable:—and
besides, he was such a damper upon us, sitting there silent and glum,
when he was under the threefold influence—of the loss of his
sweetheart, the loss of his fortune, and the reaction of the lost
night’s debauch; whereas, when he had something in him, if he was not
merry himself, he was an unfailing source of merriment to us. Even
Grimsby could chuckle over his odd sayings: they delighted him far more
than my merry jests, or Hattersley’s riotous mirth. But one evening,
when we were sitting over our wine, after one of our club dinners, and
all had been hearty together,—Lowborough giving us mad toasts, and
hearing our wild songs, and bearing a hand in the applause, if he did
not help us to sing them himself,—he suddenly relapsed into silence,
sinking his head on his hand, and never lifting his glass to his
lips;—but this was nothing new; so we let him alone, and went on with
our jollification, till, suddenly raising his head, he interrupted us
in the middle of a roar of laughter by exclaiming,—
“Gentlemen, where is all this to end?—Will you just tell me _that_
now?—Where is it all to end?” He rose.
“‘A speech, a speech!’ shouted we. ‘Hear, hear! Lowborough’s going to
give us a speech!’
“He waited calmly till the thunders of applause and jingling of glasses
had ceased, and then proceeded,—‘It’s only this, gentlemen,—that I
think we’d better go no further. We’d better stop while we can.’
“‘Just so!’ cried Hattersley—
‘Stop poor sinner, stop and think
Before you farther go,
No longer sport upon the brink
Of everlasting woe.’
“‘Exactly!’ replied his lordship, with the utmost gravity. ‘And if
_you_ choose to visit the bottomless pit, I won’t go with you—we must
part company, for I swear I’ll not move another step towards it!—What’s
this?’ he said, taking up his glass of wine.
“‘Taste it,’ suggested I.
“‘This is hell broth!’ he exclaimed. ‘I renounce it for ever!’ And he
threw it out into the middle of the table.
“‘Fill again!’ said I, handing him the bottle—‘and let us drink to your
renunciation.’
“‘It’s rank poison,’ said he, grasping the bottle by the neck, ‘and I
forswear it! I’ve given up gambling, and I’ll give up this too.’ He was
on the point of deliberately pouring the whole contents of the bottle
on to the table, but Hargrave wrested it from him. ‘On you be the
curse, then!’ said he. And, backing from the room, he shouted,
‘Farewell, ye tempters!’ and vanished amid shouts of laughter and
applause.
“We expected him back among us the next day; but, to our surprise, the
place remained vacant: we saw nothing of him for a whole week; and we
really began to think he was going to keep his word. At last, one
evening, when we were most of us assembled together again, he entered,
silent and grim as a ghost, and would have quietly slipped into his
usual seat at my elbow, but we all rose to welcome him, and several
voices were raised to ask what he would have, and several hands were
busy with bottle and glass to serve him; but I knew a smoking tumbler
of brandy-and-water would comfort him best, and had nearly prepared it,
when he peevishly pushed it away, saying,—
“‘Do let me alone, Huntingdon! Do be quiet, all of you! I’m not come to
join you: I’m only come to be with you awhile, because I can’t bear my
own thoughts.’ And he folded his arms, and leant back in his chair; so
we let him be. But I left the glass by him; and, after awhile, Grimsby
directed my attention towards it, by a significant wink; and, on
turning my head, I saw it was drained to the bottom. He made me a sign
to replenish, and quietly pushed up the bottle. I willingly complied;
but Lowborough detected the pantomime, and, nettled at the intelligent
grins that were passing between us, snatched the glass from my hand,
dashed the contents of it in Grimsby’s face, threw the empty tumbler at
me, and then bolted from the room.”
“I hope he broke your head,” said I.
“No, love,” replied he, laughing immoderately at the recollection of
the whole affair; “he would have done so,—and perhaps, spoilt my face,
too, but, providentially, this forest of curls” (taking off his hat,
and showing his luxuriant chestnut locks) “saved my skull, and
prevented the glass from breaking, till it reached the table.”
“After that,” he continued, “Lowborough kept aloof from us a week or
two longer. I used to meet him occasionally in the town; and then, as I
was too good-natured to resent his unmannerly conduct, and he bore no
malice against me,—he was never unwilling to talk to me; on the
contrary, he would cling to me, and follow me anywhere but to the club,
and the gaming-houses, and such-like dangerous places of resort—he was
so weary of his own moping, melancholy mind. At last, I got him to come
in with me to the club, on condition that I would not tempt him to
drink; and, for some time, he continued to look in upon us pretty
regularly of an evening,—still abstaining, with wonderful perseverance,
from the ‘rank poison’ he had so bravely forsworn. But some of our
members protested against this conduct. They did not like to have him
sitting there like a skeleton at a feast, instead of contributing his
quota to the general amusement, casting a cloud over all, and watching,
with greedy eyes, every drop they carried to their lips—they vowed it
was not fair; and some of them maintained that he should either be
compelled to do as others did, or expelled from the society; and swore
that, next time he showed himself, they would tell him as much, and, if
he did not take the warning, proceed to active measures. However, I
befriended him on this occasion, and recommended them to let him be for
a while, intimating that, with a little patience on our parts, he would
soon come round again. But, to be sure, it _was_ rather provoking; for,
though he refused to drink like an honest Christian, it was well known
to me that he kept a private bottle of laudanum about him, which he was
continually soaking at—or rather, holding off and on with, abstaining
one day and exceeding the next—just like the spirits.
“One night, however, during one of our orgies—one of our high
festivals, I mean—he glided in, like the ghost in ‘Macbeth,’ and seated